Yemima Hadad - Buber and Gandhi on land and resistance: Reading the Buber-Gandhi correspondence after October 7

In 1938, shortly after the November Reichspogromnacht, leaders of the Zionist movement turned to Gandhi with a request to support the Zionist enterprise in Eretz-Israel/Palestine. Gandhi, against their expectations, stated his strong objection to Zionism, suggesting that German Jews should stay in Germany and practice Satyagraha, even if it would result in massive martyrdom. In his response to Gandhi’s open letter, Buber questioned the wisdom of Satyagraha and effectively took a non-pacifist standpoint that justified violent resistance in extreme cases—such as the Nazi assault on defenseless Jews. He also tried to distinguish between the Zionist project and European colonialism, maintaining, however, that Zionism would only be successful if it could create a true Arab-Jewish cooperative. Martin Buber’s concept of dialogue and Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of Satyagraha developed in response to violent conflict, World War I and the British colonial occupation, respectively. Both Buber and Gandhi advocated non-violence as new paths of resolution and peacemaking. But they also differed in their approaches to pacifism and martyrdom. In this lecture, we will consider the famous Gandhi-Buber correspondence of 1938 to understand some of these differences and their implications for today.

Yemima Hadad is an assistant professor for Jewish Studies the Theological Faculty at the University of Leipzig. Her research interests focus on Modern Jewish Thought, German-Jewish Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Political Theology and Jewish Feminism. She received her PhD from the School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam (2021) and she is a research fellow at the Bucerius Institute for Research of German Contemporary History and Society at the University of Haifa. Her dissertation, Hasidism and Theopolitics in the Writings of Martin Buber, demonstrates the significance of Hasidism in explaining the political tenets of Martin Buber's thought.

She held several fellowships including the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes scholarship (2019/2020) and the Leo Baeck Institute fellowship (2018/2019) and the Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center fellowship at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (2017/2018). Her research has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as the Hebrew Union College Annual, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Jewish Studies Quarterly, Religions, etc. She is currently working on a monograph, Thinking with Care: Feminine Interventions into the Ethics of Dialogue (expected 2028). The book traces the meaning of feminine thought (Frauendenken) in the 20th century and discusses its relevance for contemporary gender discourses.